Andrew Mellon

Andrew William Mellon (24 March 1855-26 August 1937) was US Secretary of the Treasury from 9 March 1921 to 12 February 1932, succeeding David F. Houston and preceding Ogden L. Mills.

Biography
Andrew William Mellon was born on 24 March 1855 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of a Scots-Irish banker from County Tyrone, Ireland and a Pennsylvania-born mother. Mellon left the University of Pittsburgh before graduating, and he turned his father's lumber and coal business into a profitable enterprise. He helped organize savings and trust banks, and he backed the growth of aluminum and coal companies, leading to him having a personal wealth of $400,000,000 by 1930. In 1921, Mellon was appointed Treasury Secretary by President Warren G. Harding, and he was a member of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, opposing government spending; he became a vocal opponent of Prohibition, as the government spent $28,000,000 a year policing alcohol. Mellon introduced policies that decreased the public debt, but reduced revenue and increased spending would lead to the Great Depression. In 1932, he financed a march of 25,000 jobless Pennsylvania men to demand jobs, leading to President Herbert Hoover and the anti-communist government impeaching Mellon. From 1932 to 1933, he briefly served as ambassador to the United Kingdom, and he died in 1937 at the age of 82.